The Treasure

Three times have I beheld          Fear leap in a babes face, and take his breath,                      Fear, like the fear of eld          That knows the price of life, the name of death.                      What is it justifies          This thing, this dread, this fright that has no tongue,                      The terror in those eyes          When only eyes can speak-they are so young?                      Not yet those eyes had wept.          What does fear cherish that it locks so well?                      What fortress is thus kept?          Of what is ignorant terror sentinel?                      And pain in the poor child,          Monstrously disproportionate, and dumb                      In the poor beast, and wild          In the old decorous man, caught, overcome?                      Of what the outposts these?          Of what the fighting guardians?    What demands                      That sense of menaces,          And then such flying feet, imploring hands?                      Life: Theres nought else to seek;          Life only, little prized; but by design                      Of Nature prized.    How weak,          How sad, how brief!    O how divine, divine!